Voice For Liberty

Tag: Kansas state government

Articles about Kansas, its government, and public policy in Kansas.

  • Kansas Lags in Initiative and Referendum

    On Saturday I traveled to Oklahoma City to attend “Reforming the Reform Process: How to Restore Oklahoma’s Initiative.” What I learned is that Oklahomans are concerned with reforming a valuable citizen right that doesn’t exist at all in Kansas.

    The initiative process allows citizens to place a question on a ballot to be voted on by the people. This is helpful when the legislature or governor refuse to pass laws that the people want. Referendum allows for laws that have been passed to be revoked. In both cases, citizens usually have to gather a large number of signatures in order for the measure to make it on the ballot.

    The entrenched powers in states usually don’t welcome initiative and referendum. These powers that will resist I&R are not only legislatures, but also bureaucrats and organizations like teachers unions that benefit from current political arrangements. They’ll do whatever they can to defeat citizen efforts.

    For example, I learned of an effort where a group spent some $750,000 to gather signatures on a petition, only to have the effort invalidated due to a technical defect in the language on the petition. The measure, dealing with educational reform, was opposed by the Oklahoma State School Boards Association. That group, and others, sued to have the petition effort invalidated. They were successful.

    This illustrates a problem that citizen groups face. They may spend tremendous effort and money, only for it to be wasted. In most states, the process is stacked in favor of entrenched interests.

    Kansas has no initiative and referendum at the state level. This is only one are in which Kansas lags behind the standard set by other states.

    To learn more about the initiative and referendum process, visit these sites: Citizens in Charge Foundation, Initiative & Referendum Institute, and Ballotpedia.

  • Kansas School Spending May Be Cut

    As reported the Kansas Liberty story Governor’s budget office recommends cuts in K-12 spending, K-12 spending in Kansas may be cut. As the Kansas budget is under extreme pressure, if the governor suggests cutting spending, the legislature is probably very happy to go along.

    The irony is that since several school districts in Kansas, including USD 259, (Wichita public school district) recently passed bond issues, the state is required to pay a varying portion of each district’s bond retirement costs. If the state cuts other education spending, however, one of the campaign themes of the Wichita school bond issue will turn out to be only an illusion. See Wichita School Bond: 25% Might Come From Other Pocket.

  • United States Government Spending (dot com)

    I recently discovered usgovernmentspending.com. It seems like a great place to get data not only for the federal government, but for the states, too.

  • In Kansas, Tax Increases Loom

    As Kansas confronts a disastrous budget, the danger of tax increases is large. As reported by David Klepper in Shortfall means painful budget cuts for Kansas, “Because of declining tax revenue, Kansas faces a $1 billion deficit in next year’s budget, on top of a more than $140 million shortfall in the current budget year.”

    Right now, state officials and politicians are talking about spending cuts as a way to meet the challenge. It seems to me, however, that cutting spending the amount that is required will be politically impossible, as state spending has so many constituents. Also, Kansas spending has been growing rapidly in recent years. Calls to merely slow down the rate of growth are resisted strenuously.

    On the KPTS public affairs television program Kansas Week a few weeks ago, Martin Hawver mentioned that it’s sometimes possible to raise revenues in the first year of a two-year term. That’s what Kansas is heading into this January as a new legislature takes office. Citizens in Kansas need to keep informed during the upcoming legislative session so that proposals for tax increases may be opposed.

  • Kansas highway spending has not boosted economy

    Who isn’t in favor of good streets and highways? Don’t we need roads, highways, and bridges so that our economy can function? The problem with most studies that pump up the benefit of government spending is that they omit something very important: the cost of these projects, and who pays. A solution that I favor is to start the move towards market-based ownership and management of streets and highways.

    Highway Spending Has not Boosted Economy
    By Gregory L. Schneider

    Next legislative session, in spite of the poor budget news that will greet the newly elected and incumbent legislators, the lobbyists will be out in full force demanding more money for roads in the Sunflower State. It has been 10 years since the most recent massive infusion of highway spending, and the lobbyists will argue that roads bring economic development.

    Does a massive infusion of government spending and debt financing bring the results that lobbyists claim?

    In 1989, Kansas spent $3.15 billion on road construction and highways. In 1999, spending on highways quadrupled to $13.4 billion, about $8 billion of it state funds and the rest from federal and local governments.

    The result of such spending is that Kansas has some very good roads. According to a study by University of North Carolina professor David Hartgen, Kansas is one of six states with “zero percent poor road conditions for both rural and urban roads.” Kansas ranks ninth in the nation in per capita highway spending but 43rd in average daily traffic per lane.

    In 1999, when then-Gov. Bill Graves approved the massive increase in spending on roads, it was paid for by additional taxation, including a 6-cent-per-gallon fuel tax, an increase in sales tax, an increase in the motor vehicle registration fee, and an increase in debt to the tune of $1 billion.

    What has been the result of such munificence to road construction companies and contractors? Our per capita debt is higher than any of our neighboring states, as high as $1,218 per capita (Nebraska’s is $24 per capita). Our state debt (not all of it because of roads) has ballooned by 875.4 percent in the past 15 years (from $424 million in 1992 to $4.13 billion in 1997). Kansas already has the second-highest sales tax in the region; only Nebraska has a higher sales tax.

    A study by the University of Kansas Center for Applied Economics in May 2005 showed the counterargument to the claim that more roads bring economic development: “Over the last three decades, the presence of more highway capital in a state has not been found to attract more private capital to the economy.”

    The experience of Kansas over the past two decades bears this out. The state has spent billions on lightly traveled highways that have further burdened taxpayers with higher taxes and debt. Kansas has the best highways in the region, but private-sector development has not been a result of spending on highways.

    It is high time to stop spending money on roads in the state. If roads bring development, let’s see the evidence first before building more roads to nowhere. If it can’t be proved that roads lead to economic development, then change the focus of the debate on economic development to lowering taxes, decreasing government spending and paying off debt.

  • Wichita School Bond: 25% Might Come From Other Pocket

    One of the ways the Wichita school bond was promoted was the 25% argument. This referred to the fact that the state of Kansas would pay 25% of the bond repayment costs. USD 259, the Wichita public school district, urged Wichitans to think of this as free money.

    As reported in news media, the Kansas budget is under severe stress. Part of the problem is the rapid increase in education spending mandated by the Kansas Supreme Court. Now the Wichita school district, by the passage of the bond issue, adds perhaps $7.5 million per year in additional spending commitments to our state, once all the bonds are sold.

    Where will this money come from? As reported in the Kansas Liberty article Looming deficits force education funding cuts or a tax increase, education spending is the most likely place legislators will look to cut spending.

    So it may turn out that the 25% the state owes the Wichita school district will be paid for by reducing other funding the state sends this school district.

  • Governor orders steeper cuts in face of budget crisis

    Kansas Liberty reports this about the Kansas budget: “Kansas is headed for a financial disaster, but nobody’s sure yet exactly what to do about it.”

    One of the things the passage of the school bond issue in Wichita has done is to place an additional burden on the Kansas budget. Some bond issue supporters spoke as though there was an account in Topeka with money sitting idly, waiting for us in Wichita to claim it. That is one of the many false claims bond supporters made. There is no such fund. The money that Kansas will have to pay will be found either in the form of higher taxes or reduced spending. Ironically, education spending is mentioned as an area for spending cuts.

    The full story at Kansas Liberty is Governor orders steeper cuts in face of budget crisis.

  • Charter Schools on the Rise in Kansas City, But Not in Wichita

    Parents in Kansas City, Missouri are making widespread use of an educational option that’s not available in Wichita.

    As reported in today’s Kansas City Star (Charter schools on the rise in KC), about 23 percent of Kansas City schoolchildren attend charter schools.

    As I’ve written before in posts like Charter Schools Are Mostly Okay Despite Misconceptions, parents love the choice and options that charter schools provide. If they are not satisfied, parents have other options. For the charter schools that continually perform poorly, they usually close. That doesn’t happen with public schools.

    So how many charter schools do parents of children in the Wichita school system have to choose from? The answer is none. The Kansas charter school law makes it clear that competition for the existing public establishment is not desired. The Wichita school board and administration endorse this attitude.

  • Untruths about carbon and its regulation at the Wichita Eagle

    The Wichita Eagle’s recent editorial by Rhonda Holman takes a few Kansas legislators to task for statements regarding regulatory uncertainly in Kansas (No ‘regulatory uncertainty’ in Kansas, October 28, 2008 Wichita Eagle). She claims their statements “don’t reflect reality” and that their untruths are harming Kansas’ ability to bring in business.

    I want to remind Ms. Holman of reporting in the Topeka Capital-Journal from earlier this year which investigated some of the issues surrounding the denial of the permit for the expansion of Holcomb Station. As reported in my post Rod Bremby’s Action Drove Away the Refinery, the Secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment absolutely created a very confusing situation. He denied a plant solely for its level of carbon emissions, and then said that a proposed plant that emits even more carbon would not be a problem.

    Who would trust a public official who speaks like that?

    Besides this, Ms. Holman says the Holcomb plant is bad for Kansas, as it exports power “while leaving Kansas with 100 percent of the carbon dioxide.” I know of no authority — not even Al Gore — that believes that carbon dioxide pollution is a problem in the local vicinity of a power plant. To the extent that carbon emissions are a problem — and that’s a mighty big “if” — it’s a problem on a global scale. Why else would climate change alarmists be concerned about carbon emissions from power plants in China?